Rebuilding the Desktop

Thank you to stedman1, Niel, Allan Eckert, Mike Sombrio. I had to laugh because I haven't had such problems in years and had not realized desktop rebuilding was no longer necessary. I'm one of "those," who load in the software and just go use it. A sort of non-geek type who occasionally asks for help. The Support communities never fail to help. So thanks for such quick reply. I will be sure to note Like to all of you. And Star for the This helped me also.

The reason why I was going to do this antique operation was because over the last year...or two, I've been collecting a lot of stuff on my iMac. I mean a lot of it. And I almost always have 4 or 5 browsers open as I am a researching scholar who loves to use my computer and the Internet do collect information. Also I buy and collect music and information on the visual and performing arts, science and philosophy articles, gardening information, you know the regular stuff ordinary people are interested in.. And I've been saving emails from family and friends, I mean a lot of them. So my computer started slowing down abominably, and so I decided to start dumping files I reasoned I no longer needed. I dumped a lot of documents, I am ashamed to say how many, but it is a significant number, like a small city library's worth, no kidding. I'm the kind of worker who when a document from the 'Net looks useful, I'll save it to the desktop then later put it in a designated folder along with other related documents. I hope you understand people like me. Kids call me a pack rat (as an artist also, I hardly throw anything away using the same rationale that I might need it sometime in an artwork! Maybe delusional but that won't be known until I shed this life!)

Well the newly freed up space computer that has about 275 GB available is still running slow. Browsers are not loading very efficiently and switching from one browser to another or from a browser to a text edit document or Word document that I'm working on is interminably long also that kind of drives me crazy as it didn't used to do that. In the past the response time has been very quick to make the transitions. It was like having a dozen secretaries and clerks running around getting research data, the perfect assistants (who don't need treats) for academic writers like myself! So I remembered that maybe the desktop needed to be rebuilt after taking all the documents off (put them all on thumbdrives, like a total of about 100gig of storage, now not all the space is used mind you! But a lot of space on five little drives has been used that I find more convenient than the large LaCie external hard drive. I can just stick a thumbdrive in that has been designated for a particular subject and off I go having a grand frolic of either using the information or adding new docs to the list. So that is why I was trying to rebuild the desktop that I now know does not need it. Guess I have to find out why...or how...to get the computer to work a bit faster using all the doodad programs to help me.

Thank you all so very much.

I tried to indicate your reply helped solve the mystery of rebuilding the desktop but the page wouldn't let me. Same thing for Niel and stedman1. You guys are great!